Letters to the editor

The Supreme Court has asked the government to fix norms for appointing election commissioners to ensure independence in conducting free and fair elections.

Published: July 10, 2017 5:30 AM

On SC’s suggestion on EC appointments

The Supreme Court has asked the government to fix norms for appointing election commissioners to ensure independence in conducting free and fair elections. The dictum of Supreme Court to evolve a new mechanism, bidding adieu to the present system of picking a person of choice of Union government to the post of election commissioner, gives an unintended impression that the polls are not being conducted freely and fairly. So far, the appointment of election commissioners has remained non-controversial. The Supreme Court has also acknowledged that all appointments of election commissioners have been outstanding so far, and persons so appointed have been fair and neutral. This being so, Supreme Court has ostensibly more import task cut out for it to reduce the pendency of cases and script a new mechanism to rectify the collegium system to appoint judges. Fresh memorandum of procedure has not yet been finalised and filling of judicial vacancies has remained an unseemly tussle with Centre.

— KV Seetharamaiah, Hassan

India courting Israel

PM Narendra Modi’s three-day diplomatic sojourn to Israel indeed represents a major paradigm shift. Despite being sought to be justified on the ground of pragmatism, the significant change in policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gives us pause for making our feelings known. Even though New Delhi holds that it sticks to the ‘two state solution’, this, to all intents and purposes, exists only in theory. Modi’s disinclination to visit Ramallah or meet any Palestinian leader, and his coinage of the sobriquet “I for I”—India for Israel—have clearly shown with whom his sympathies lie.